


take me out

by loveleee



Series: i'm just a shot away from you [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Relationship, School Dance, canon AU, just teens bein' teens, still no murder!, wholesome sexual tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 06:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14970764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: “You really believe Jughead Jones, who hasn’t attended a single school dance in the last three years, agreed to go to this one just so you wouldn’t feel weird wearing a floofy dress?”“He’s doing me a favor.” Though when Veronica says it, it does sound sort of…implausible.Just not as implausible as Jughead actually taking interest in a girl.(Jughead takes Betty to the homecoming dance. Follow-up totry me on.)





	take me out

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow-up to my fic [try me on](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14946485). I suggest reading that one first, though it's not really necessary to understand this one.

“Incredible. Amazing. Show-stopping.” Veronica dabs the corner of Betty’s mouth with a tissue, and then takes a step back, admiring her work. “Spectacular.”

“Stop it, V, you’re gonna give me a big head.” But Betty can’t stop the wide smile that spreads across her face as she looks in the mirror. She looks good. She looks really, _really_ good.

Now all she can do is hope that Jughead notices.

Even now – an hour before the homecoming dance is scheduled to start – she can’t quite wrap her head around the fact that she’s going with him as her date. When he’d asked her a week ago, out on the sidewalk where they’d parted ways for the evening, she’d been so certain that he would change his mind that she’d practically sprinted home just so he wouldn’t have the chance.

But as far as Betty could tell, everything had proceeded smoothly so far. He’d bought his ticket, and – declining Veronica’s numerous offers to let him “shop” her father’s closet the way Betty had hers – procured a suit. Tonight the boys were eating dinner at the Andrews’ house while the girls got ready at Betty’s (sneaking bites of pizza in between twirls of the curling iron), and then they would pick up their dates next door before driving to the high school in Archie’s rusty old jalopy.

Deep down, Betty knows that Jughead would never be so cruel as to stand her up for a school dance – let alone one she’d planned herself. But there’s a part of her that won’t believe they’re _actually_ attending homecoming together until they’re buckled into the backseat of Archie’s car.

“You look _stunning_ , Betty,” Veronica gushes, gently adjusting a lock of Betty’s hair so it sweeps past her cheekbone. “Jughead is going to lose his mind when he sees you.”

_God, I hope so_ , she thinks. But she tells Veronica what she’s been telling herself for the past six months and change: “It’s not like that.”

There’s no specific reason that she still hasn’t admitted her feelings for Jughead to her best friend. It had taken her so long to admit them to herself that the thought of saying it out loud to another person simply feels exhausting to Betty. And in a way, she likes that her crush on him is something that belongs only to her; that she can sneak glances his way in English class, and spend hours alone with him working on the Blue and Gold, without Veronica constantly needling her for details or pushing her to make a move.

“You _really_ believe Jughead Jones, who hasn’t attended a single school dance in the last three years, agreed to go to this one just so you wouldn’t feel weird wearing a floofy dress?”

“He’s doing me a favor.” Though when Veronica says it, it does sound sort of…implausible.

(Just not as implausible as Jughead actually taking interest in a girl.)

The doorbell rings at eight on the dot, and Betty’s mother answers it a moment later, letting her gaze sweep over the boys before she steps aside to let them in. Archie bounds through the door first, making a beeline for his girlfriend, and then Jughead ambles in after him.

“Hi,” Betty says from her perch on the staircase.

“Hi. Wow.” Jughead stops short as he takes her in. “You, um. I didn’t think you could look any better than the first time, but…” He trails off, seeming at a loss for words. He’s not exactly _losing his mind_ , Betty thinks, but she’ll take it.

“Thank you,” she says, clasping her hands in front of her, feeling herself grow shy beneath his gaze as she descends the last few steps to stand before him. “You look really good, too.”

She doesn’t know where he got it from, or how he had it fitted so quickly, but Jughead looks sharp in his dark gray suit, and the light blue button-down he’s wearing beneath the jacket brings out the blue of his eyes. Her stomach fills with butterflies when he lifts his hand to present her with a small but pretty bouquet of flowers.

“Uh, these are for you,” he says, somewhat stilted, and she accepts them with both hands, dipping her nose to breathe in their sweet, floral scent.

“Thanks, Juggie,” she says softly.

“Let me put those in a vase.” Her mother’s voice is brusque, and the bouquet is plucked from Betty’s grasp before she can even identify the different types of flowers. “How are your parents, Jughead?”

“They’re fine,” he replies, shifting uncomfortably on his feet, and Betty feels a sympathetic ache take root in her chest. Just a few weeks ago, as they’d sat close together at one of the desks in the newspaper office, laying out page templates for the upcoming issue, he’d told her that his parents were separating. _It’s fine_ , _they’re always fighting anyway,_ he’d said, but she knew it was something he was wrestling with, even if it was ultimately for the best.

She brushes her fingers against the back of his hand, and he gives her a small smile in return that sends the butterflies fluttering all over again.

“Tell them I say hello,” her mother says, placing the flowers into a glass vase in the kitchen, oblivious to Jughead’s discomfort. When they’ve been arranged to her satisfaction, she turns back and crosses her arms over her chest. “Hal, did you get the camera?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They make it out the door by a quarter after eight, despite Alice Cooper’s demands for group photos in every possible permutation of the four of them, and Veronica’s insistence that it was deeply uncool to show up to a school dance less than an hour after it had started.

“Aw, c’mon, Ronnie,” Archie says, poking her in the side. “Betty spent all day helping get the decorations up. She should get to enjoy them as much as possible. Right, Jug?”

Jughead only shrugs. “Whatever Betty wants.”

“Betty wants to get out of here before her mom decides her dress is indecent,” Betty says, grabbing her purse. Her mother had raised a single eyebrow and pursed her lips in response to the sight of Betty’s dress (which did, admittedly, bare quite a bit more cleavage than she was accustomed to). Surprisingly, though, she’d _said_ nothing – and was probably only letting Betty out of the house because her date was the lanky, nonthreatening kid who worked on the school newspaper and wore a twelve-year-old beanie on his head.

The drive to Riverdale High is brief, but Jughead is unusually quiet on the way over. Betty watches him from the corner of her eye, frowning slightly when she sees the way his leg is shaking, like a nervous tic.

“You okay?” she asks him, keeping her voice low so Archie and Veronica won’t hear.

His leg falls still. “I’m fine,” he says, and shoots her a fleeting smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Inside the gymnasium, with the lights down low and music thumping from the sound system, everything looks as Betty had planned. Shiny gold and blue stars hang from the rafters, criss-crossed with streamers and fairy lights in the same color scheme, and the dance floor is already packed. Despite Veronica’s best efforts, the concept of arriving fashionably late doesn’t seem to have reached Riverdale yet.

“Amazing as usual, B,” Veronica says, raising her voice so Betty can hear her over the music. “Let’s dance!”

She lets Veronica pull her into the crowd, but she can’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach when Jughead doesn’t follow, instead heading to the refreshments table with Archie. He never said that he’d dance, she reminds herself. Only that he’d _take_ her to the dance.

They find Kevin among the moving bodies fairly quickly, his face already flushed, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. “You look like _angels_ ,” he shouts over the music when he sees them.

Dancing with Kevin and Veronica is fun, and at least three different girls whom Betty has never met compliment her on her dress. But as one song fades into another – and another and another and another – she can’t stop her gaze from drifting to the back of the gym, seeking out what she can only assume is the only gray hat in the room. She sees Archie standing around with Moose and a few other guys from the football team, but Jughead isn’t among them. For all intents and purposes, he seems to have disappeared.

A hand cups her elbow. “You should go find him,” Veronica says, leaning close to speak into Betty’s ear.

Betty’s almost thankful for the heat, as it conveniently hides her blush.

“He doesn’t like dancing,” she points out.

“He likes _you_.” Veronica gives her a little push, and Betty rolls her eyes, but she picks up the excess fabric of her skirt in her hands and starts to weave her way past her classmates.

As she approaches the edge of the dance floor, the current song ends and another, slower one begins. Her heart skips a beat. Maybe when she finds Jughead, she’ll convince him to slow dance with her.

She’s so caught up in the idea of it that she isn’t paying attention to what’s in front of her, and she walks right into someone’s back with a graceless _oof_. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she exclaims.

Her unsuspecting victim turns out to be Trev Brown, who just smiles and waves off her apology. “No worries. Wow, Betty, you look beautiful,” he says.

Betty smiles. “Thanks.” She starts to move past him, but he brushes his hand against her wrist, stopping her.

“Hey, would you wanna dance?”

Betty pauses. She and Trev had gone on a single date, a little over a year ago, and had a good time together at Pop’s. They didn’t have a whole lot in common – he was far more outdoorsy than Betty, with plans to go camping with his older brother nearly every weekend that summer – but he was easy to talk to, and good-looking, and sweet. A second date wasn’t out of the question.

Ultimately, though, their timing hadn’t worked out – she’d left town for a two-month internship in Los Angeles just a week later, and their attempts at keeping in touch during her absence had petered out quickly. By the time she got back to Riverdale, Trev had moved on, and she hadn’t felt much more than a mild disappointment that was overshadowed by the joy of being back around her best friends again.

“I’m actually trying to find Jughead,” she says, adding, “He’s my date.”

Trev blinks a few times. “Jughead Jones?”

“Do you know another Jughead?”

He laughs. “I didn’t know he came to these things.”

“He usually doesn’t.” _But he did this time. For me,_ she thinks. _Though you wouldn’t know it._ Betty flashes Trev another smile and keeps going.

He’s not by the refreshments, not in the bleachers, not with Archie and his friends. She’s almost ready to give up and go find Veronica and Kevin again – the DJ has switched back to a fast song anyway, and the Pussycats should be taking the stage soon enough – when she spies him from the corner of her eye, coming back into the gym through a set of doors all the way at the other end of the room.

Betty watches as Jughead takes a few steps forward and then pauses, leaning against the railing of the other set of bleachers. His hands disappear into the pockets of his dress pants, and he slumps slightly. (He’s always had bad posture, a failing her mother had never hesitated to point out, along with Archie’s tendency to chew with his mouth open, and Veronica’s roaring silence anytime someone in her vicinity sneezed.)

He looks lonely, she realizes. And while that is sort of Jughead’s “thing” – feeling alone in a room full of people, or whatever – she can’t understand why he’s doing so _now_ , when he’d come here with her.

He straightens up when he sees her approaching, pulling one hand out of his pocket to tug at the brim of his beanie. “Hey. Are you having a good time?”

She steels herself. “I’d be having a better time if my date didn’t disappear for the better part of an hour.”

His forehead creases into a frown. “What?”

Betty looks past his shoulder, avoiding his questioning gaze. “Well, we got here and you kind of just…took off.”

He looks stricken. “I was here the whole time. I mean, I went to the bathroom just now. Is – are people giving you a hard time about your dress? I know you wanted someone to wear it with –”

“No,” she interrupts. “It’s not the dress.”

Betty knows she’s not being entirely fair. But she feels weirdly emotional, now that she’s standing here with him face to face, and she can’t stop the words that come next: “Trev asked me to dance with him.”

His expression closes up immediately, like shutters falling over his face. “Oh.” He looks away, to the stage, where a spotlight has appeared, though the music from the DJ continues to play. “Sorry, I mean – you should dance with him. If that’s what you want.”

“That’s _not_ what I want.” The tremble in her own voice surprises her, and so does the sudden heat prickling at the back of her eyes. _Oh, my god. Do not start crying right now._

The gymnasium lights shut off, allowing Betty to wipe away a solitary tear without detection as Jughead’s attention turns to the stage. The Pussycats strut out from behind the curtains to the left, Josie taking her position behind the microphone. Val plucks a few strings of her bass, and Melody holds her drumsticks up over her head.

“One, two, three, four!”

The band launches into some 80s pop cover, the crowd squealing in excitement. Jughead merely looks irritated. “Can we go somewhere else?” he asks. “Where we don’t have to yell at each other?”

Betty nods, and follows him back out through the doors where she’d seen him enter a few minutes before.

The lights in the hallway are on at a normal level, and she closes her eyes for a few seconds as they adjust. When she opens them again Jughead is a few feet behind her, pacing.

“I’m confused,” he says.

Betty watches him, resisting the urge to cross her arms over her chest. “About what?”

“About…this.” Jughead stops, and gestures awkwardly to the space between the two of them. “I feel like you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not _mad_ at you. I’m hurt.” As she says it out loud, she realizes it’s true. “You asked me to come to this dance with you and you’ve barely spent any time with me."

Jughead is looking at her like she’s speaking in a foreign language. “I didn’t think you wanted to.”

Betty can hardly believe what she’s hearing. “Why would I agree to come to a dance with you if I didn’t want to _dance with you?_ ”

“Because you kept telling everybody we were just going as friends!”

The words hit her like a punch in the stomach. Because he’s right.

It wasn’t just Veronica she’d been lying to. It was Archie, Kevin, Ethel, her parents, even their English teacher, when she’d asked Betty conversationally who she was taking to the dance. “Jughead and I are going as friends,” she’d said, even when he’d been standing right there in the doorway, waiting for her so they could walk to the cafeteria together.

She’d just been so worried about scaring him off. She’d seen the way he’d reacted, when Ethel had asked him on a date in ninth grade. She’d seen the sour face he made when someone (identity still unknown) had sent him an anonymous candygram for Valentine’s Day last year. If he understood that Betty didn’t just want him there as her date – that she wanted _a_ date, _with him_ – he’d back out of their plans entirely.

How, exactly, she had intended to get from “just friends” to a romantic night at the dance together…well, she hadn’t really thought those details through. Her daydreams had always skipped ahead to the good part: his hands around her waist, holding her close as they swayed to the music, her cheek resting against his warm, solid shoulder. His head dipping down, lips tilting towards hers…

“You can still dance with your friends,” she says lamely.

Jughead lets out a long breath. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess you can.” He gestures weakly towards the gym, where it sounds like the Pussycats have moved on to another song, something original. “Do you want to dance, Betty?”

Right now, all she wants to do is curl up in a ball and feel terrible about herself. “Not really,” she admits.

He sighs. “Me neither.”

“Maybe we should just go home,” Betty says, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I can call my mom to pick us up.”

“I can walk.”

“Okay.” She presses her lips together, willing herself not to cry again. She’d been so excited about this night; now it was ending, hours before it was supposed to, and instead of drawing her and Jughead closer together it had only driven them further apart. Even worse, it was all her fault. “My bag’s still in there, so…”

She steps towards the gym doors, and just as her hand is about to press forward on the handle, his fingers close around her wrist, tugging her gently back towards him.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, meeting her gaze with an intense look. “I hate that I’ve ruined your night. I just – Veronica said that you _wanted_ me to ask you, and then that clearly wasn’t the case, and I’ve been really nervous this entire time because…because I like you. And I’m afraid I’m just going to screw everything up.”

Betty feels lightheaded; maybe her heart’s stopped, after all. “You like me?”

Jughead looks like he might be ill. “Yeah. For…a while.”

“I like you too,” she says, almost panicky in her haste to tell him.

At first, he doesn’t react.

“What?”

“I like you.” Betty stares up at him, imploring him to understand. How many times would she have to say it before he believed it? _I like you. I like you. **I like you, Jughead Jones.**_

His eyes grow wide. “You do?”

“Yes.” Unsure what else to say, Betty takes his hands in both of hers. “Also for a while.”

She’s pretty sure that the dopey grin forming on his face matches her own. At least, until his forehead scrunches up in confusion.

“Then why…?”

“I thought it would freak you out,” she admits. “If you knew. You don’t have the greatest track record with girls who like you.”

“That’s because they’ve never been _you,_ Betty,” he says, and for the first time in her life, Betty Cooper thinks she actually understands what swooning is.

“Hang on,” Betty says, after a few more moments of grinning at one another like a couple of drunks. “Veronica told you _what?_ ”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re still holding hands when they walk back into the gym. Josie is crooning a well-timed slow song into the mic, and Betty and Jughead drift to a stop at the back of the room, well away from where their classmates are gathered, a mass of slowly moving bodies swaying to the beat.

“Do you want to dance?” He doesn’t wait for her answer. He places her arms around his neck, and then his hands on her hips. Betty’s smiling so hard it’s painful – a good kind of painful.

“You can come closer, we’re not at Catholic school,” she teases.

Even in the low lighting she can see the color rise in his cheeks when he pulls her closer, his hands coming to settle on the small of her back. “I’m just being a gentleman,” he mumbles against her ear.

Betty laughs, and leans into him a little more, letting her cheek rest against his shoulder, just like she’d imagined.

The song ends, but they stay pressed against one another for a few seconds more before Jughead releases his grip on her waist.

“Do you want to find Veronica and Archie and everyone? With me this time,” he adds, ducking his head in embarrassment.

“Not really,” she says honestly. “I kind of just want to go hang out with you.”

Jughead looks relieved. “Me too.”

“We could go to Pop’s?”

“A woman after my own heart.” He reaches out and runs his fingers over the fabric of her skirt. “Do you want to go home and change first?”

Betty bites her lower lip and smiles, shaking her head. “I love this dress. Unless you’d feel awkward, being seen with me in the diner.”

“With the most beautiful girl in Riverdale? Hardly.”

She nudges him in the side with her elbow as they make their way towards the exit. “Wow, smooth move. Where’d that come from?”

“I’ve got a million more of ‘em, I’ve been saving up for years.” Jughead holds open the door. “Just you wait.”

Halfway across the parking lot, Betty concedes that her heels are too painful for the full twenty-minute walk to Pop’s, and despite Jughead’s offer to carry her the entire way, she orders a Lyft on her phone. Of course, there’s only one Lyft in the entire town of Riverdale, and they sit down on the curb once they see the wait time.

“I can probably get away with missing curfew,” Betty muses, “since my mom thinks I’m out with you as a _friend._ ”

“I think that might be a bad way to start things off.” Jughead pauses, then adds, “Assuming there _is_ something we’re…starting off.”

She smiles down at where their hands are resting side by side between them, his pinky finger hooked around hers. “There is. But,” she says, shifting a little closer to his side, “there’s one more thing we could do to make it official.”

He looks at her fondly. “What’s that?”

Betty gazes back, and swallows down her nerves. “You could kiss me.”

He looks like he’s got one more teasing, flirty thing to say, but he must change his mind, because a second later his lips press gently against hers, tentative and tender and warm. His hands come up to cup her face, and she leans into him, one hand resting on his knee for balance.

Jughead breaks the kiss first, but he doesn’t move away, his nose brushing gently against the tip of her own. “How was that?”

She smiles, her eyes still closed. “Good.”

“Good?” He shakes his head a little, their noses bumping together again, and she giggles. “I think I can do better than good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Show me.”

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> \- [Check out this _gorgeous_ art that @satelliteinasupernova made for the end scene of this story!](http://satelliteinasupernova.tumblr.com/post/175093430109/i-love-imreallyloveleee-s-fic-series-im-just-a) I'm obsessed!!
> 
> \- I hope this was a satisfying little follow-up to the first one. I had one guiding principle: cuteness. ^_^
> 
> \- Comments are so very appreciated! I would love love love to know what you think.
> 
> \- And I'm on tumblr at imreallyloveleee, come say hi!


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